Rio Grande and Other Verses

Description

The perfect collector's item - a beautiful facsimile edition of A. B. 'Banjo' Paterson's classic ballads, published by Angus & Robertson during World War One as a gift from home to the soldier in the trenches. Rio Grande and Other Verses was published in 1917, when Banjo Paterson was himself was on active service in the Middle East. It includes poems such as 'Mulga Bill's Bicycle', 'The Road to Gundagai' and 'Song of the Federation', and features illustrations by Hal Gye. This edition, published to commemorate the centenary of the end of World War One, has been minted from one of eight extremely rare books of verse originally published by Angus & Robertson as little reminders of home for soldiers to slip into a pocket and carry through the fighting. It features original layout, illustrations, advertising and blurbs, as well as the special 'Trench' dust jacket that wraps around the regular jacket, missing on nearly all of the rare extant original editions.

A. B. 'Banjo' Paterson (1864-1941) was born near Orange in New South Wales. He worked as a lawyer's clerk before becoming a solicitor. After the publication of The Man From Snowy River and Other Verses in 1895, he became something of a celebrity, travelling widely throughout Australia. He was a war correspondent in the Boer War in South Africa, and the Boxer Rebellion in China.He later became editor of the Sydney Evening News. He is perhaps most famous for having composed the words to 'Waltzing Matilda'.